Inside the rise & fall of Tupperware from why Queen loved the boxes to how its own 'party queen' injured 21 people

09/18/2024 05:43 PM

FOUNDED in 1946, the Tupperware party is finally over as the food container firm filed for bankruptcy yesterday.

After years of declining sales, the US brand found itself in $700million of debt and watched its shares plummet by over half this week.

Chief executive Laurie Ann Goldman said the firm — beloved by the late Queen — had been "severely impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment".

As well as the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of materials, the firm struggled to compete with cheaper alternatives, including reusable takeaway cartons.

Tupperware is now looking for a potential buyer.

In its heyday the airtight kitchenware was such a cultural phenomenon that it was a must-have for every housewife.

And the only way to get your hands on the goods in the Fifties and Sixties was at a Tupperware home party.

They featured bonkers games like hurling a juice-filled box across the room to prove it would not break.

Another popular trick was to hold upturned bowls over each other's heads to test for leaks.

Consultants were advised to only serve soft drinks to party guests "so that no one is tempted to overreach herself socially or financially".

The brand's former success means many people still use the term "Tupperware" to refer to any plastic food container today.

Queen Elizabeth II was even a fan — and was revealed to store her cereal in the containers on the breakfast table — quite out of keeping with the royal silverware.

She would also use colourful Tupperware for her fruit.

Her Majesty's former chef, Darren McGrady, said: "People always say, 'Oh, the Queen must eat off gold plates with gold knives and forks.

"Yes sometimes, but at Balmoral she'd eat fruit from a plastic yellow Tupperware container."

The royal revelation in 2016 boosted sales by 80 per cent.

Another famous fan was nutritionist Gillian McKeith, who grossed out viewers in the Noughties when she stored poo samples in the boxes on her TV show, You Are What You Eat.

Tupperware was the brainchild of chemist Earl Tupper, from New Hampshire, who wanted to tackle the issue of food waste, as cash- strapped Americans recovered from the Great Depression.

Inspired by airtight lids on paint cans, he created the polyethylene Wonderbowl, but the vacuum seal was so innovative that customers needed to be given instructions.

But saleswoman Brownie Wise saw their potential — and a way to cover her sick son Jerry's medical bills.

When a travelling salesman knocked on her door, the single mother was so unimpressed by his pitch that she decided to try selling them herself.

Despite Brownie's boss telling her, "Management is no place for a woman", she quickly outsold the shops in her hometown of Detroit and started recruiting staff.

She was then offered distribution rights to Florida.

‘DISASTROUS PARTY’

Brownie gave demonstrations to women across the country, including editors at Vogue and Glamour magazines, and soon her team was flogging so many containers that Tupperware could not supply them fast enough.

Frustrated, Brownie lectured Earl about supply problems and he hired her to run his new Home Parties Division in 1951.

Within a year her distributors had taken more than $2million worth of orders.

Glam Brownie would offer her own dresses as sales incentives to her staff, who would diet to squeeze into her cast-offs.

By 1954, she had a network of 20,000 saleswomen.

She was rewarded with an eight-bedroom mansion on a lake in Florida.

But she soon fell out of favour after she appeared to take credit for the company's success in the media.

And a disastrous party for 1,200 guests on an island she owned in 1957 led to Brownie's ultimate downfall.

A torrential thunderstorm left 21 guests injured and when Earl caught her using a Tupperware dish as a dog bowl a few months later, he fired her for "undermining the company's image".

She died in 1992 at the age of 79.

Earl Tupper sold Tupperware to Rexall Drug Company for $16million in 1958 and it continued to flourish.

In 1961 the brand arrived in Britain and became an instant hit.

Four years later it launched in Japan, Australia and Singapore, and containers were rapidly developed in a huge range of different shapes, sizes and colours.

By the early Sixties the company had more than a million consultants, who would still call on Brownie's "party plan" manual.

It told how the "social spirit of a party tends to lower sales resistance of those present".

She continued: "It is a proven fact that you will sell more to a group of 15 women than you will sell to them individually."

Consultants earned commission on every sale and it was seen as the embodiment of modern feminism — giving women more time out of the kitchen to succeed in the world of work.

Many were rewarded with cars and holidays and, at the company's Florida headquarters, consultants were given shovels and encouraged to dig for treasure.

In 1983, the year Earl died, Tupperware became the world's biggest seller with direct sales of £620million.

But the popularity of the parties dwindled as women entered the workforce in droves and eating out became more affordable, leading to less home cooking and the need for storage.

There was a brief sales boost during the Covid lockdowns when people had to stay home and rely on homemade food.

In 2022, Tupperware started to sell more eco-friendly containers on Amazon, but it was not enough to save the business.

Sadly, selling plastic boxes at home parties is no longer the highlight of a lady's social calendar.